In my first post I mentioned being a little discouraged by my book not being as successful as I had hoped. I believed God had given me a vision for my calling by writing this book. In my mind, this bible study was a concentrated effort at sharing the gospel with women and hopefully seeing the fruits of transformed lives. I was hoping for a platform that would multiply. What I have come to realize, is that sometimes He will give you a picture of the vision, but the actual delivery is like a box with multiple parts that reads "assembly required". It's going to take lots of work.
Last week at church we heard from Luke 19 of the Parable of the Ten Minas. You can read it here. (https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+19&version=NIV) In the past when I read this passage I felt it was a parable about stewardship of our possessions. A mina was a unit of currency in Jesus' time. In Matthew 25 Jesus spoke about The Parable of the Bags of Gold. I had interpreted them to be speaking about the same thing. In other words, how well do you steward the possessions, talents, and wealth that God has given you? Not all of us are given the same talents or wealth; however, we are expected to use what we have for kingdom building. But there is a big difference in these two stories. In the story about the bags of gold, the master begins by giving out differing amounts to his servants; they don't begin with the same amount. In the Parable of the Ten Minas, each of the ten servants are given the same amount. Our pastor posed the question, what is something as believers that each of us are given as a deposit to invest? The answer is the Gospel.
I spent the next week really pondering that idea. I thought to myself, "sure, I share the gospel. I have even wrote a bible study about it." And then one morning as I was running on the treadmill, the Holy Spirit whispered to me, "How many times do you share the Gospel with a woman during a given week? How many women do you encounter in a typical week? I have already given you a bigger platform; now what are you going to do with it?. "As I thought about it, I realized that number had grown. I used to see 25-40 patients per day. But in the past several years, my daily schedule has continued to rise to the point where I see 40 people every day. It is so easy form me when I am busy to become task focused instead of gospel focused. Forty people is a lot of patients to move through and can easily become tiresome. Also, dealing with people is hard. I'm not always aware of everything going on their lives when they come through my doors. Making an effort to crack that surface takes time and work; something, that on some days, I feel short of. I have realized in some aspects my busyness has distracted me from my spiritual focus; this is a great tactic of the enemy. If he can't make you bad, he will make you busy. More people equals a bigger platform for sharing the Gospel; I already have what I was looking for. And in that moment I distinctly heard the Lord say, "Stay in your lane. Do the work I've called you to do."
At the end of this parable Jesus tells them, "I tell you that to everyone who has, more will be given, but as for the one who has nothing, even what they have will be taken away." In other words, being faithful day to day to share the deposit He has given, will automatically increase my ability to do so. He had already done that. My job is to stay gospel focused.
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